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September 15, 2016

(+++) FROM HOT AND HEAVY TO COOL AND LIGHT

S.E.X.—The All-You-Need-to-Know
Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, Second Edition.
By Heather Corinna. Da Capo. $17.99.

There are 462 oversize pages
in “this very (very) big book,” as Heather Corinna describes what she has
written. She is not a medical doctor, not a psychologist, not a professional
educator in any traditional sense, but the founder of a Web site called
Scarleteen whose promise is “Sex Education for the Real World.” Actually,
Corinna is as interested in what she would like the real world to be as in what
the real world is. “I picture a world without shame or fear when it comes to
bodies, sexualities, or sexual or gender identities, where difference is
embraced and celebrated, and where every voice is acknowledged and treated with
care and respect.” And changing the world into this one “really isn’t that hard
to do. It’s mostly just about changing your mind, which you probably already do
at least several times a day, if not more often.” And so on. And on and on and
on and ON. This helps explain the 462 pages.

Luckily, S.E.X. (which “spells out” every sexual
matter Corinna can think of – clever title, huh?) is not so mired in utopian
twaddle as to be useless. In fact, quite the opposite. The vast majority of the
book is excellent: clear, scientifically accurate, plainspoken (if rather
cutesy in style, especially considering that the author is in her mid-40s), and
extremely effective as introduction to (or intermediate-level discussion of)
sex and sexuality. A fair sample of Corinna’s approach is this, from a
subsection called “Braaaaaaaaiiiinnns” (not necessarily the best place for a
zombie reference, but this is her
style): “…I have something very, very important to tell you: when it comes to
sexual response and pleasure (not just reproduction), sex is mostly between your ears, not your legs. …Once you
understand how the brain is our largest and most significant sex organ, you can
begin to see how thinking differently isn’t necessarily a negative when it
comes to sexual pleasure.” Ah…differently from what? Well, that is a big part
of Corinna’s book. All sexual activities are fine when mutually agreed to; all
forms of sexuality are equally good; there are in fact no negatives at all
where agreed-upon sexual communication is concerned. Typical remark: “The
prostate, like the G-spot, clitoral glans, or the glans of the penis, is
sensitive to touch, so plenty of people enjoy prostate stimulation during
sexual activity. Some people call it the ‘P-spot.’ Because of its location, it
is stimulated by receptive anal sex or stimulation or deep massage of the anus
or perineum.” See? Total inclusivity for anything and everything sexual.

Notice that “plenty of
people,” though. In Corinna’s world, “plenty of people” do just about anything
and just about everything. Bending over backwards (so to speak) to be
inclusive, she determinedly asserts (without any real scientific backing) that
lots and lots of people do everything, assert their sexuality in every way, and
behave in every possible manner (and never “misbehave,” an absent concept here,
even jokingly: this is a virtually humorless book). The underlying “lots and
lots” assertion is demonstrably false: a May 2015 Gallup poll found that even
though Americans believe – thanks in part to skewed media coverage – that about
23% of U.S. adults are gay or lesbian, the percentage actually self-identifying
as homosexual, transgender, or bisexual is 3.8%. But Corinna joins many, many
other media people in drawing very substantial attention to this tiny subgroup,
as when she creates a box in her chapter on gender identity called “Straight
and About to Skip This Part?” and writes, “Please
don’t. I am literally begging you.
Not only may you find that, over time, your own orientation or sexual identity
shifts but also queer people, like transgender people, like all young people of
any stripe, need allies.” Corinna is never more than a paragraph or two away from
advocating something designed to create that better world that she believes she
can help bring about.

If your thinking resonates
with Corinna’s, S.E.X. will be a
wonderful (if lengthy) read; but even if you find her rather hectoring
presentation of the way things should be (and the utterly normal way everything
already is) to be over-the-top, you will find a tremendous amount of
straightforward, extremely useful information here on sex and sexuality. Her
presentation of sexual anatomy (never mind that “brain” stuff), for example, is
excellent, filled with carefully drawn diagrams that may be revelatory even to
the sexually experienced. There is even a full page of drawings called
“Genitals Come in All Shapes and Sixes!” that looks like something the underground
cartoonists would have created a few decades back – but that is used here
strictly for informational purposes. Also extremely useful are boxes labeled
“Myth Busting” that tackle things “everybody knows” and show why they are false
– for instance, that eating disorders affect only women, that it is common to
meet one’s “soulmate” early in life, that the hymen seals the vagina before
first intercourse, that the greatest risk of abuse or assault is from
strangers, and so forth. Useful in a different way are detailed discussions of
“body fluid or blood play” (which, like everything else, is perfectly fine as
long as those involved agree to it), finger cots (which are “easy-peasy” to use
“for anal play or clitoral stimulation”), vaginal discharge that is “chunky or
very heavy, with small curds like cottage cheese,” and much more.

“Much more” is the watchword
here, whether discussing oral herpes or “the sexual readiness checklist,” which
is lengthier and more exhaustive than a list used for planning extended international
travel (well, it should be, Corinna
would surely say), and which is broken down into “material stuff,” “body and
health,” “relationship requirements” and “emotional items” – in which, for
example, one of the nine required (and very lawyerly) assertions is, “If my
partner or I have any strong religious, cultural, ethical, political, or family
beliefs or convictions that pose serious conflicts to any kind of sexual
activity, we have evaluated, discussed, and resolved them,” and another states,
“I understand that sex and love aren’t the same thing, and I do not seek to
have sex to use it to manipulate or harm myself, my partner, or anyone else. I
feel my partner’s sexual motives are sound, safe, and realistic as well.”
Exhaustively informative this book certainly is: it is about as comprehensive a
tome on sexuality (and, really, not just for people in their teens and 20s) as
you are likely to find anywhere. It is fair to say, however, that it is exhaustingly informative as well, so
filled with so much presented at such length and in such detail – and within a
context of such strong, even strident advocacy – that for at least some
readers, it will seem like a very, very, very
big book indeed.